You know, that’s a really stupid set of answers that looks like it was intentionally designed to split the vote. “Completely” or “partially”? That makes no sense. If we have an equilibrium situation where heat inputs and losses are balanced, and humans come along and tip that balance, are you just going to say they’re only partially at fault, because the sun is pumping all that energy into the system? It’s silly phrasing.

If Mr Bean visits the grocery store and pulls out the bottom can in a neatly stacked pyramid of canned goods, causing the whole thing to tumble down in a mess, are you going to say he was only partly to blame for the chaos?

Climate change deniers, like creationists (unfortunately both are substantial minorities of the population) think they know the reasons for their beliefs, but reveal themselves to be ignorant buffoons when you ask them why they deny climate change. One of the most common responses is a rant against Al Gore, as if Al Gore is the be all and end all on climate change, or this so called “scientific consensus” jibe perhaps invented by Rush Limbaugh. We’re gonna have a rough time dealing with the planetary consensus which unfortunately does not give a rats ass about “scientific consensus,” or our collective pissant denial of reality. Nature will take its course indifferent to our collective denial. Even Bjorn Lomborg is moderating his stance a bit. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be looked back in the trash heap of history as another Bishop Wilberforce.

He is director of ITI Energy Limited, suppliers of gasification equipment which converts waste into biofuel; AFC Energy which develops efficient alkaline fuel cell technology (he also has a share option); Group Eurotunnel, serving on the Environment And Safety Committee (another share option); director of Eco City Vehicles (and share option); chairman of TMO Renewables which develops and supplies technology for second generation biofuels; and a management consultant with Regenesis, a California-based company which markets technologies for the restoration of natural resources.

As intergalacticmedium points out, the Telegraph is a paper that gives undue airtime to the likes of Delingpole and Monckton; the editorial policy is sympathetic to their views.

(The poll can be viewed in that light – heavy self-selection in action, especially after the URL went around the RW blogosphere.)

In addition, the paper is pretty much devoted to Thatcherism.

Tim Yeo is chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change committee; he’s also a veteran of the Major government (and thus anathema to a lot of Thatcherite Tories); and has been a consistent supporter of anthropogenic warming as a fact since the days of Rio and Kyoto. So a bunch of the harder UK right wing don’t like him for a number of reasons.

Now, Yeo is a) pro-business and b) was addressing an audience composed of various representatives of the energy industry, journalists and so forth. So he chose his words so as not to ruffle feathers (hardly suprising, considering that he’s a professional politician).

The Telegraph journalists present recorded his comments and duly wrote a story about how Tim Yeo was backtracking on his views; and their echo chamber went into the usual frenzy; Delingpole, the GWPF, Anthony Watts et. al. repeated the Telegraph story pretty much verbatim.

At which point, Yeo said that this was definitely not his viewpoint; furthermore, as per Roger Harrabin’s Twitter feed (@RHarrabin) ‘He says @telegraph took first half of an answer and ignored the crucial 2nd half. I’m waiting for a Tgraph response’.

The deputy news editor (Matt Holehouse, @mattholehouse on Twitter) – whose byline is on the article in question, doesn’t say that Tim Yeo has changed his position (despite hinting at it in the opening paragraphs), but says in response that:

‘Why did one of most senior and principled MPs say things he didnt believe to energy business people at the Westminster Russia Forum? Odd.’

So essentially it comes down to ‘politician vs. journalist';

Holehouse’s implication is that Yeo is two-faced, dishonest or vacillating.

Yeo’s position is that the 52 seconds of audio is a selective quote that misrepresents his position.

Who do you believe?

(Personally, I’d go with Yeo, because this sort of manufactured controversy is a classic bit of propaganda, ditto the selective quoting – and because the Telegraph has form with regard to this sort of behaviour.)

Completely – This would mean that all of the warming is due to human activity.
Partially – This would mean that human activity causes some of the warming, while even without said activity, the climate would have warmed some anyway.

What is hard to understand about that? (asking the public for advice is hard to understand, the question isn’t)

.. Climate change deniers, like creationists (unfortunately both are substantial minorities of the population) think they know the reasons for their beliefs, but reveal themselves to be ignorant buffoons when you ask them why they deny climate change. One of the most common responses is a rant against Al Gore, as if Al Gore is the be all and end all on climate change, …

.. or this so called “scientific consensus” jibe perhaps invented by Rush Limbaugh. We’re gonna have a rough time dealing with the planetary consensus which unfortunately does not give a rats ass about “scientific consensus,” or our collective pissant denial of reality. Nature will take its course indifferent to our collective denial.

Perhaps my favourite quote about this whole issue is this one :

“I like ice also as an indicator of climate change for its political neutrality.
Ice asks no questions, presents no arguments, reads no newspapers, listens to no debates. Its not burdened by ideology and carries no political baggage as it crosses the threshold from solid to liquid. It just melts.”

So what has the ice been doing? Melting faster than the models have predicted with 2012 seeing a record lows for the Arctic sea. We’re literally melting one of the Earth’s polar caps and this ultimately cannot be denied for all the contrarian commentary.

via ‘The New York Times’ from December last year – most recent summer there – on the faster than expected overheating of parts of the Antartican continent.

So yes, both poles are melting although the Arctic is vanishing far quicker. But if you’ve read Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Mars trilogy*, among other things, you’ll know why the Antartican melting is a *really* bad thing.

@15. mikel :

Actually, given that is very possible that we would be in a slight cooling trend without AGW, humans could be responsible for more than 100% of the observed warming.

Very good point which deserves repeating.

+++++

* Yes, that’s science fiction – but also very damn well researched science fiction from a bloke who has actually been there and knows what he’s talking about.

Yes, I was surprised by the implication that Yeo was pandering to the denialists – among Tory MPs he has so far been about the most consistent and outspoken supporter of climate science. If the Torygraph is lying, that is of course no surprise at all.